Ok guys here it goes..... I unfortunately I had to put my 131/2 year old black lab Yukon down 4-5 months ago and we miss him more than words can describe. He was the best all around dog I have ever had. We still do have our 10 year old yellow lab kody and this dog is also a great dog and he is absolutely spoiled. My problem is my sons are getting older and love to hunt and we dont realy have a hunting dog. Kody is getting older and is pretty much a house dog for the wife now. I'm sure I could get him in shape enough to go out a little but he would probably suffer quit a bit.

So what our thought is to get another black lab pup. I really want to train this new pup to be the ultimate retriever to work off of hand signals and so on. I trained Yukon to do all of this but slacked on kody and that's where my problems arise......

How hard will it be to train a pup for all of that around a old pup that wasn't?

It shouldn't be a problem training your new puppy to be a serious hunting dog with another dog that's more of a companion around. The only places you might run into trouble would be if he's allowed to do things in the house that you don't want the new puppy doing, like laying on the furniture.

Spend lots of one on one time with both dogs. I'd do a lot of training in small spurts throughout the day with the puppy. Tons of socialization and foundation obedience when he's little to lay a strong foundation for later hunt work.

Hopefully someone will know of good training videos. I never really used them and don't know a whole lot about training bird dogs.

Thanks for the reply. This is alot tougher decision than I thought it would be. I'm not to worried about the obedience of things like getting on furniture because we don't allow kody to do those kind of things. In that aspect we are fine, our dogs have always had there designated beds and spots to lay in the house. I'm more worried about things like playing fetch and wanting my new pup to only release when I say because kody just releases when the object is thrown. I'm also concerned because I will have to train my boys and wife to do the same things I am with the pup like playing fetch or heel or any other obedience type thing. I gues it will have to all be separate and we will all have to be really dedicated to training this dog the right way and not get lazy!

A lot of dogs are smart and come to understand the difference between what's expected when they're working and what's allowed when they're off duty. For example, my borzois are trained as service dogs (medical alert and assistance). One is retired, the other more actively working. They both love to run and even hunt critters when off duty, but wouldn't dream of it while on the job.

You'll probably be fine. To be safe, you could designate certain toys as "fun" toys. Like, say all rope tugs are recreational and don't enforce it with them. But all training dummies, tennis balls, etc. are "working" toys and he's expected to behave a certain way with them, then work to transfer that to birds.